Heritage Court 2018 - Full Read

Connie Grabow

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

She had the unique experience of caring for the poet Robert Frost briefly as the poet lived out his last days near Harvard where she was attending college. And she regrets that she didn’t invite a young John F. Kennedy to coffee when she spotted him walking through the halls one evening, his shoulders slumped.

Connie Grabow brought a lifetime of such experiences to Sun Valley in 1980. And in the 39 years since, she’s created a lifetime of new experiences, helping to grow the Community Library, raising funds for the hospital and serving meals for Souper Supper and The Hunger Coalition.

“Thirty-nine years here—I’ve been here longer than any place else. My children live here. My grandson and granddaughter went to school here…I have real roots here,” she said.

What Grabow’s cultivated here have not gone unnoticed. The City of Ketchum nominated her this year to the 2019 Blaine County Historical Museum Heritage Court.

Grabow will be inducted into the court with her fellow nominees—Verla Worthington Goitiandia, Pamela Rayborn and Mary Peterson—on Sunday, June 9, in a fun-filled event open to the public at The Liberty Theatre in Hailey.

At first, Grabow turned down the honor—“I wasn’t born here,” she said. Then she reviewed how her son John, who had worked in the U.S. Senate Legal Department, had moved here with his wife Laura so their then 4-year-old son Charlie could attend Community School. Her son has had plays produced at the old nexStage Theatre, and her grandson won a 4A doubles Idaho State Tennis championship.

And her daughter Marcia Grabow taught math and physics at Wood River High School before becoming Data and Assessment Coordinator for the Blaine County School District.

“So, I’m totally rooted here,” she conceded.

Grabow grew up in Milford, Mass., where her father owned a popular restaurant. Grabow ate lunches there during elementary school and worked as a cashier during high school.

“Everyone ate there so I knew everyone,” she said.

Though just 5-foot-4, she played on her high school’s first women’s basketball team—a team that won every game its first year, thanks to a player who had good athlete DNA since her brother played for the Boston Braves.

Grabow studied anthropology and sociology at nearby Harvard University, later becoming the first women president of the Harvard Club in Michigan to the chagrin of a few guys who were not happy having a woman at the helm.

She went on to work for the U.S. State Department in Freiburg and Stuttgart, Germany, during part of the 1950s and ‘60s.

“It was a wonderful job,” she said. “We worked to make sure the Germans were not taken over by the Russians. We had Voice of America and a documentary film program. And we ran Amerika Hauses, which were developed after the war to provide Germans an opportunity to learn about American culture.

“I’d say the program was successful because the Germans are big allies now. The children learned about Americans—they knew we were not the way the Nazis portrayed us.”

Grabow left her work with the State Department to marry her late husband Leonard Grabow, and the two moved to Michigan where Leonard practiced law. He came to Sun Valley for a legal conference and was smitten, announcing he wanted to move to Sun Valley for a year or two to improve his skiing.

“I looked at him and said, ‘Are you for real?’ ” Grabow recounted. “All I knew about Idaho was potatoes.”

The Grabows never went back to Michigan. Leonard skied every day in winter, and the couple played tennis during summer. They traveled to Africa, India and China during slack season.

“Leonard had seven years in Sun Valley, deliriously happy doing everything he loved before he died,” Grabow said. “I never dreamed we’d stay here.”

Grabow plunged into the thick of things, housing and caring for special needs athletes who came to Sun Valley to compete. She also served on the board of Moritz Community Hospital, which she says was so small and intimate that board members delivered meals to patients and spent weeks decorating for the hospital’s glamorous Christmas ball.

“I don’t know how many Saturdays we spent in someone’s unheated garage making wreaths,” she said. “It’s wonderful to have St. Luke’s with all its state-of-the-art equipment, but I did like the small hospital. I like old things—the house I grew up in is still there, and it’s over 100 years old.”

Grabow also served on the board of The Community Library, helping with such fundraisers as the Homes Tour and the Moveable Feast, where library rooms were decorated in the spirit of different books with foods to match.

“I enjoy volunteering. A lot of causes really depend on volunteers—they’re the unpaid employees,” she said. “The library board had more than 30 people on it then. It had to be big because we didn’t just go to board meetings and sit and have tea.”

The library was one of Grabow’s pet causes because, she said, books have always been important to her. She’s taken her collection of books, which include such classics as Wallace Stegner’s “Angle of Repose” and Goethe’s “Faust,” with her wherever she’s moved.

“The first thing I ever did upon moving to a new town was to find out where the library was. Once I found it, I could feel at home,” she said.

Over the years, she has spent countless hours editing oral histories for the library.

“The Community Library is an exceptional library—not just for the books but all the special programs they have for kids and adults,” she said. “People come here from other cities and they’re amazed when they find out we use no government funds to keep it going. My son published a book and he couldn’t find it at the Library of Congress but he could find it here.”

Grabow walks a few blocks from her home in Warm Springs to the Wood River YMCA three times a week where she does yoga and exercise classes.

“If I don’t go, I feel guilty,” she said. “And I don’t think I could do some of the things I do now if I hadn’t kept exercising so religiously.”

Indeed, her light auburn hair is a familiar sight at countless activities, including the Wood River Community Orchestra concerts where her daughter-in-law plays French horn, film festivals, play readings, the Sun Valley Writers Conference, symphony concerts, Sun Valley Center for the Arts events and countless lectures at the Community Library.

“I was recently so impressed with John Kerry’s appearance at the library—in fact, I just finished reading his book,” she said. “It’s a busy lifestyle here, and I’ve a curious mind.”

Pam Rayborn

She was known as the Queen of the Silver Dollar for her penchant for dancing. And at 70 Pamela Rayborn is still dancing.

You may even catch her dancing across the stage today when she is crowned as part of the 2019 Blaine County Heritage Court, along with Verla Goitiandia, Connie Grabow and Judy Peterson. The event will take place at 3 p.m. today—Sunday, June 9—at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey. Open to the public, it will include entertainment and refreshments.

“I’ll be crowned as Lady Pam because the sash on which they print our names is so short. But I’ve always been known as Pamela,” said Rayborn.

Rayborn, who was nominated by the City of Bellevue, fits the court’s criteria. She’s lived in the community at least 30 years and she has given back—in her case, by teaching children how to ski at Rotarun Ski Area and Dollar Mountain and by leading a Girl Scout troop.

She was born Pamela Pace in the Sun Valley Lodge in 1949--when the top floor was a hospital. It was an incredibly snowy winter, she said, and her parents had difficulty getting from their home near Trail Creek Cabin to the hospital when it was time for their baby girl to emerge.

“Dr. Moritz was the physician then and he held me in one hand and said, ‘What a lot of fuss for this!’” said Rayborn, who weighed 7 pounds on arrival.

Rayborn’s father Denny Pace worked as a waiter and bartender at the Duchin Room at Sun Valley Resort at the time.

“He used to walk with us down the hall with all the pictures of celebrities and tell us stories about the rich and famous and who tipped and who didn’t,” she said.

Her father built a cabin on Garnet Street with the help of his friends, utilizing logs from the nearby woods and stones from the surrounding mountains.

The family had scarcely moved into the cabin, however, when Denny decided to make the Air Force his career. He would go on to fly 50 missions over Sicily and Italy during World War II, pilot the first jet over Idaho and surrounding states and retire as Colonel.

And his daughter soon found herself in Waco, Texas; Weisbaden, Germany; Dover, Del., and at bases in South Carolina and Georgia. But her family kept their cabin, renting it out to Bill Butterfield and others. And every few years they would come home to Sun Valley on vacation.

“My father grew up in Burley where Grandpa Pace was sheriff. And it took him three times before he made it to Sun Valley because he either ran out of gas or his car broke down. It wasn’t so easy driving in the 1940s,” said Rayborn.

Rayborn’s father volunteered as a fighter pilot during five wars—he and test pilot Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier, had the same number of hours at one time.

“While we were stationed in Germany, he brought my grandpa over—my dad had lost two brothers on D-Day so it was nice that he could do that. We had a lot of fun while there because we traveled to Austria and Holland and other countries in an old station wagon,” Rayborn recalled.

Rayborn said her father, who went on to serve as Post Commander of the Ketchum American Legion for several terms, had a bad feeling about the Vietnam War so he moved his family back to Ketchum.

Rayborn learned to ski at 15.

“My friends—Pam Street, Robbie Bell and others—were racing nationally so I had to learn,” she said. “We would walk up Dollar Mountain and ski down. The more we skied, the better we got.”

Unfortunately for Rayborn, her father was transferred to Hill Air Force Base in Utah her senior year. Not only did she miss getting to graduate with her friends, but she missed a certain boy named Steve Rayborn whom she was dating by then.

The two got married in 1966, just as her father took the family to Spain. They have been married for 53 years.

After Steve decided college wasn’t for him, he and Pam helped Steve’s parents with a trailer court they owned on River Street in Hailey. They took over when Steve parents died. They got into real estate, buying a few rentals in Hailey’s Woodside neighborhood, and Steve worked in construction.

During summers the family headed to McCall, Featherville and Pine where Steve would cut trees with his chainsaw for logging companies.

“It was hard work,” said Rayborn. “He’d fall them, then walk along both sides to cut the limbs off. Then he’d run a measuring tape down the trees and cut them when he reached 30 feet or whatever length he wanted. Our girls—Angie and Stacie--helped his oil and water. While we lived in a trailer, they lived in a tent with the dog.”

Work aside, the Rayborns enjoyed their recreation. They rafted Idaho’s major rivers, including the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Owyhee, before heading to the Grand Canyon where they floated the Colorado River for 18 days.

They backpacked in the Big Horn Crags north of Challis and into alpine lakes in the Sawtooth Mountains.

“We still like to hike, although only day hikes now,” she said, recounting last summer’s trips to Baker Lake and Miner Lake in the Smoky Mountains. “Eight miles a day is our limit now.”

Pamela and Steve prefer the warmth of Mexico during winter. Every winter they try to head out before the first major storm, driving through Nevada and Arizona across the border. They drove down the Gulf Coast to the Yucatan peninsula one year. And they drove through Baja another, before settling in Mazatlan, a three-day drive from the border.

“The RV park fees are reasonable and they’ve got lots of colorful birds to watch. We also dance four nights a week to ex-pat Americans who play rock and roll, blues and beach party music like Neil Diamond and Kenny Chesney on the beach. The dancing in Mexico starts at 6 so we can be home and in bed by 9:30 and still have a good night.”

Rayborn laments that there isn’t more opportunity to do the two-step she and Steve used to do.

“But the younger generation didn’t like country western music. I don’t know if they all rap but I don’t like rap. It doesn’t encourage dancing—it’s just bouncing up and down. But I think country western is coming back—I understand they’re teaching line dancing at The Mint now.”

Rayborn is thankful she and her husband still have their health to enjoy dancing and bird watching—the lazuli buntings coming through Bellevue right now are pretty impressive, she said.

“We hop on our bicycles to go to the grocery store,” she said. “We make an effort not to get in our cars.”

And she’s thankful that the Wood River Valley leaders have tried to control growth. Even Mexico is getting built up as high rises replace RV parks, she notes.

“The Wood River Valley is a gorgeous valley and I love how it opens its heart to those in trouble—everyone is quick to have a benefit,” she said. “We may spend winters in Mazatlan. But as soon as we top the summit above Timmerman Hill and look across the valley, a tear comes to my eye. This is home.”

JoAnn Levy

JoAnn Levy Embodies the Aloha Spirit.

Her license plate says “Aloha O.”

And JoAnn Levy has always striven to impart the aloha spirit to Sun Valley—her paradise on earth.

“ ‘Aloha’ is a way of thinking and a way of being,” said the Hawaiian native. “I practice aloha. I work at being friendly and making people happy.”

Levy’s efforts to do her part to create a Sun Valley paradise have prompted her to take on a variety of tasks from serving as mayor of Sun Valley to being a faithful donor of furniture, clothes and books to the Gold Mine thrift store.

And that got her named to the Blaine County Heritage Court, which honors women who have contributed to the fabric of the Wood River Valley.

Levy will be inducted in the court during a ceremony capped by entertainment and refreshments at 3 p.m. today—Sunday, June 10—at The Liberty Theatre. Joining her will be Faye Hatch Barker, April MacLeod and Vonnie Olsen.

Levy grew up in Oahu where her father was in the Navy.

But she yearned to know more of her mother’s Scandinavian heritage. And, so, in 1963 the 23-year-old Aloha girl hopped the Snowball Express in Los Angeles with a ticket provided by the Union Pacific Railroad, which owned Sun Valley Resort at that time.

“I wanted to learn to ski because that’s what Scandinavians do,” she said. “And all the Hawaiians I knew who skied came to Sun Valley because the Austrian ski school was so famous.”

Levy worked the 3 to 11 shift at the Sun Valley Inn’s soda fountain, which was the go-to place for the after-dinner crowd.

“It was hard work because the ice cream was so hard. But I was famous for making really good banana splits,” she said “The night the Beatles were on TV no one showed up at the soda shop so I put up the ‘Closed’ sign and ran around the corner to see them.”

Levy’s schedule enabled her to ski all day long. Having learned balance on a surf board, Levy learned to ski on Dollar Mountain and within a week was skiing Baldy in her long black Head skis and leather boots.

Skiing remains a passion of hers all these years later. You can count on her being among the first in the lift line on opening day, standing in her K2 skis. And you can set a watch by her appearance in the lift line at 9 each morning during the season, although she’s beginning to spend more time on Dollar Mountain with her three grandchildren ages 4, 6 and 7.

Levy taught skiing to little tykes like them for several years.

“I remember one little girl with red hair who didn’t want to ski so I told her she could watch the others put on their skis and shuffle around to get an idea what it was like. Pretty soon, a lady with an elegant shiny silver Lemay jacket came down wanting to see her ski. It turned out to be President Kennedy’s sister Jean Lawford, and Ski School Director Sigi (Engl) was furious that I couldn’t yet show her daughter skiing. Finally, I got her up on skis.”

Like so many in the valley, Levy came for one winter but had so much fun she soon became a permanent fixture.

She worked as the hot bun gal in the Lodge Dining Room, serving pecan rolls, croissants and doughnuts from a tray hanging from a strap around her neck. At dinner she served dinner rolls and French bread to celebrities and other diners who were dressed to the hilt.

“I noticed that the waitresses who had nice foreign accents were getting a lot of tips so I tried saying, ‘Ja.’ One table of guests asked me where I was from and I replied Oslo. They started talking in Norwegian and I knew a few words, having studied a semester of international relations at an Oslo university. But I told them, ‘In this country I’m only speaking English.’ ”

Other jobs followed. She served as lifeguard at the Lodge pool, took photos of skiers for Magic Photography and oversaw The Place, a center for teens to hang out and play pool, pinball and watch TV, Come Christmas she organized a teen dance for them, with Frank Sinatra records for them to dance to.

She worked at a property management company and sold real estate back in the day, she noted, when there weren’t so many realtors. And she put her Master of Education degree to work as a substitute teacher when the school was located where Atkinsons’ Market is today.

“One of my students was Mariel Hemingway and she was so cute in her little jumper,” she recalled.

JoAnn met her husband-to-be Buck Levy while working as secretary for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in its early days. Buck, a doctor, had become an Olympic Nordic ski racer and jumper while attending Western State Colorado University, even though he grew up in Louisiana.

It was he who introduced cross country skiing to Sun Valley in 1972, in hopes of getting the fledgling SVSEF to sponsor a Nordic racing team.

“He said Sun Valley would be an ideal place for cross country skiing, but none of the stores had cross country ski equipment then. So he had his teammates from the 1956 Olympics in Cortina, Italy, bring some equipment and they stomped out a track at the high school. And people loved it. Even women who did not care for downhill skiing loved it because they could go along at their own pace without fear of heights.”

Bob Rosso, who owns The Elephant’s Perch, saw the potential and ordered equipment. And JoAnn added a pair of wooden Nordic skis to her arsenal of skis, learning how to burn syrupy pine tar on the bottom. Pretty soon, she was skiing downhill and cross country every day.

She readily entered all kind of races, including one from the top of Galena Summit to the flats where partners switched to tandem skis and proceeded to Busterback Ranch. And she took part in the first Boulder Mountain Tour when it began in 1973 as the Sawtooth Mountain Marathon.

“When they began setting up aid stations along the way, one station served oysters on the half shell,” she recalled.

JoAnn raced in 41 straight BMTs, often winning her age class. Most of the races are a blur because they were “perfect, all alike.” But she’ll never forget the 2008 race when her eyelids froze so she couldn’t blink and her fingers almost became frostbitten.

“I was determined to finish, and I survived a real adventure,” she said.

Levy missed her first BMT last year after her son Dan, his wife Dream and their children escaped the rat race in Los Angeles to move in with the Levys.

“I didn’t have enough time to train because I was busy helping to homeschool my grandkids. Maybe next year,” she said.

After she and Buck became married in 1973, JoAnn took up many of Buck’s favorite sports, including fly fishing and duck hunting.

We married in October in Carmel on the first day of duck season. Our plane hit a duck as we flew to Boise so Buck said he got his duck after all,” she recounted. “Now I’d rather feed birds than shoot them.”

JoAnn also became a marathon runner, although her “four and a half” marathons never came closing to matching the 37 marathons Buck ran from 1978- to 1984 in places like Pikes Peak, Colo., and Boston..

When she wasn’t recreating, she volunteered for the hospital auxiliary, the Sun Valley Writers Conference where she particularly enjoyed the Irish author Frank McCourt, and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, where she served as docent for several exhibits and helped put on wild game dinners.

She served as president of the PTA at Hemingway and the Community School. And she published a book of cartoons titled “It Happens in Sun Valley,” illustrated by her father Norman.

“I did a movie for Warren Miller—he took me to France to ski in one of his early shorts called ‘Skier a Go Go’ following a tryout on Baldy. And I was an extra in the 1965 movie “Ski Party” that Frankie Avalon made in Sun Valley. You can still see it sometimes on TV. It’s a lot of fun.”

Levy served on Ketchum City Council, advocating for one of Ketchum’s streets to be named Corrock in honor of Susie Corrock’s 1972 Olympic stint. When she and Buck moved to Sun Valley, she served on Sun Valley’s Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council before undertaking one 4-year term as mayor beginning in 1994.

“I loved to marry people on top of Baldy, at Trail Creek Cabin, by the river,” she said. “I’d always send them a card from Sun Valley on their first anniversary to remind them of their special time in Sun Valley.”

Today the Levy home is filled with signs of their grandchildren’s presence. Little clay figures that the grandchildren made the day before sit on the island of the country kitchen where JoAnn has cooked scads of recipes from her many cookbooks representing every cuisine around the world.

Their artwork is everywhere, even interspersed among Buck’s extensive array of hot sauces from Louisiana. And the days are chockfull of field trips to such destinations as the fire station.

“I live in the perfect place with friendly people and a great lifestyle with an emphasis on nature and the outdoors,” she said. “And I am loving sharing it with the grandchildren.”

Vonnie Olsen

Vonnie Olsen had no idea the adventure that awaited her when she married the milkman of Carey.

When heavy snows came, even she was pressed into collecting and delivering the milk.

“Paul would collect the cans of milk and take them to the Kraft plant,” she said. “And when everything got snowed in, you couldn’t get to the places where they had the cans because nothing was plowed. So we’d commandeer all our friends who had snow machines and everyone would go out and collect the cans of milk. If we hadn’t done that, the milk would have gone to waste.”

Olsen had never heard of Carey, growing up in Rigby where she milked ewes and shoveled sawdust at her father’s small sawmill. But she has carved out a rich legacy since moving to town in 1965—and that earned her a berth in the 2018 Blaine County Heritage Court, which honors women who have made noteworthy contributions to the Wood River Valley and Carey.

“Paul brought me to Carey to meet his parents and it was dark by the time we got here,” she recounted. “Paul told me, ‘We’ll have coffee in the morning and I’ll give you the grand tour.’ The next morning he said, ‘This is the high school,’ and I said, ‘Where do the rest of the kids go?’ ”

Olsen was flabbergasted to learn that everyone went to school in the same building. But she’s come to believe that one of the best things about the school is its small size and intimacy.

“It’s small enough that it allows each child to be so individual,” she said. “Students get to try out lots of different things because they’re not competing with so many students to get a spot on the football team or in the band. And they get a lot of individual attention. I think a lot of kids have trouble finding their niche in bigger schools.”

At that time, Olsen had no idea she would spend the next 53 years of her life in Carey.

She met Paul Olsen in Rexburg where Paul received his associate degree at Rick’s College where his mother and sister had studied. He planned to finish studying math at Utah State University.

But, nine days after the two were married, Paul developed an eye infection and the two went to Carey where Paul could tend the family cows while recuperating from treatment that involved injecting him with dead typhoid fever vaccine to kill the infection.

In 1968 the couple bought a house on Main Street that included the Tee-Pee Restaurant, and Vonnie began serving up hamburgers, fries and shakes to travelers enroute to Craters of the Moon National Monument.

“We got people from all over the world—a lot from Europe,” she said. “I remember in particular a group of five kids who were driving their parents’ van from California. They had run out of money on their credit card by the time they got to us. They wanted a free meal, but I told them they’d have to work for

it. I made them mow the lawn and, after we closed, we had a really good visit. I sent them on their way with sandwiches.”

The Olsens also milked their own cows, with a Hereford bull helping to herd them.

“The kids would rid the bull down to the pasture and when they got to cottonwood trees, the bull would brush up against them, forcing the kids to get off. It was like he was saying, ‘Time to get off!’ ”

Eventually, the Olsens decided to close the Tee-Pee because they decide it would not be economically feasible to build a fire retaining wall between the Tee-Pee, which was housed in the garage, and the house they lived in.

Vonnie went to work as county court clerk and as a receptionist for the Hailey Medical Center and Carey Clinic. She served on County Planning and Zoning and later Carey Planning and Zoning and Carey City Council.

Olsen was able to help with the incorporation of Carey. And she started the Carey Economic Revitalization Group to improve the town’s economy and beautify the valley.

She’s most proud of the Boyd Stocking Pavilion, which was named after a man who played a major role in the Wood River Irrigation District.

“I had heard the irrigation district wanted to build a pavilion in his honor and so I asked if they would like to partner with us,” she said. “They provided the money to build the pavilion and we got donations of picnic tables and trees. It’s been a vital part of the community because we didn’t have motel or public restrooms to get people to stop. And it’s used on a regular basis with people renting it for things like family reunions.”

Olsen also headed up the drive for the Croy Canyon Ranch, which would have provided a three-tier assistive living/nursing home where the new animal shelter is being built.

“It was so disappointing that that didn’t happen. Everybody wanted that so badly,” she said.

Always an avid outdoors enthusiast, Olsen taught 4-H snowmobile classes and swimming at the Hot Springs Ranch when the Ellsworth family allowed the Red Cross to use it for lessons.

More recently she has taught the Carey Senior Citizen Fit and Fall-Proof Class whose biggest inspiration, she said, was 80-year-old Lucky Stocking.

“I like having people around and I like to do things,” she said. “Not only does it make me feel good but I feel I’m contributing to others’ health, as well.”

Olsen started off lifting weights to improve her own strength at what is now Big Wood Fitness. And a decade later she began coaching a group of teenage powerlifters.

The kids got so good that she took them to NASA-supported high school meets in Salmon, Reno and elsewhere wearing T-shirts and hats with the motto, “All it takes is all you got.”

“I don’t think anything does any more for confidence building and mental clarity,” she said. “It’s not easy to get teens to give up their free time to do something so to get them to be committed to powerlifting was big.”

One youngster-Michelle Kelsey—got so good that Olsen accompanied her on an international powerlifting cultural and peace mission to Leningrad and Moscow where they toured Red Square and Russia’s famed onion church.

“It was such a different culture,” she said. “The first thing we noticed was that women were considered second-class citizens. If we started to get on an elevator and there were three men there they’d move us aside and go first. We were supposed to march into the gym and the men were having no part of us going before they.

“At the same time, we saw how much young people wanted to come to America. They would cry a few tears and raise their hand in the air and say, ‘America.’ Then they’d lower their hand and say, ‘Russia here.’ ”